Rhythmic egg-laying behaviour in virgin females of fruit flies Drosophila melanogaster

Dec 17, 2013Chronobiology international

Regular egg-laying behavior in virgin female fruit flies

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Abstract

Circadian rhythms in egg-laying were observed in 70 to 90% of virgin Drosophila melanogaster females under constant darkness and constant light conditions.

Virgin D. melanogaster females exhibited a rhythmic pattern in egg-laying behavior with periods ranging between 18 and 30 hours.
Egg-laying peaked immediately after lights-off in virgin females, contrasting with mated females, which laid more eggs during the day.
The egg-laying rhythm persisted in the absence of mating cues, indicating that it is endogenously driven.
Males may influence the egg-laying rhythm by reducing the synchronization of females to light/dark cycles.

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Fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster females display rhythmic egg-laying under 12:12 h light/dark (LD) cycles which persists with near 24 h periodicity under constant darkness (DD). We have shown previously that persistence of this rhythm does not require the neurons expressing pigment dispersing factor (PDF), thought to be the canonical circadian pacemakers, and proposed that it could be controlled by peripheral clocks or regulated/triggered by the act of mating. We assayed egg-laying behaviour of wild-type Canton S (CS) females under LD, DD and constant light (LL) conditions in three different physiological states; as virgins, as females allowed to mate with males for 1 day and as females allowed to mate for the entire duration of the assay. Here, we report the presence of a circadian rhythm in egg-laying in virgin D. melanogaster females. We also found that egg-laying behaviour of 70 and 90% females from all the three male presence/absence protocols follows circadian rhythmicity under DD and LL, with periods ranging between 18 and 30 h. The egg-laying rhythm of all virgin females synchronized to LD cycles with a peak occurring soon after lights-off. The rhythm in virgins was remarkably robust with maximum number of eggs deposited immediately after lights-off in contrast to mated females which show higher egg-laying during the day. These results suggest that the egg-laying rhythm of D. melanogaster is endogenously driven and is neither regulated nor triggered by the act of mating; instead, the presence of males results in reduction in entrainment to LD cycles.

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Rhythmic egg-laying behaviour in virgin females of fruit flies Drosophila melanogaster

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